Since day 1 with my unlocked HTC One, I have experienced issues with the lock screen of the device, and for the life of me could not figure out the problem. Well, until today, thanks to the Play store release of Floating Notifications. During the initial launch tutorial for the app, the developer made reference to an HTC Sense 5 bug that was breaking the lock screen if a user enabled any of the services under the Accessibility setting. As someone who uses a Pebble, and it’s pairing app that requires an Accessibility service to be turned on, this was the exact root to my problems. 

The video below demonstrates the issue, but I’ll explain it anyway. You see, the traditional Sense 5 lock screen requires a swipe up anywhere on the screen or the dragging and dropping of your dock app shortcuts in order to unlock. With an Accessibility service turned on, the entire thing breaks. With a service turned on, all you need to do is touch your screen with a single finger and the device becomes unlocked. No swiping needed.

Where my blood boiled, was when the device would automatically answer incoming calls should I receive one and pull the phone out of my pocket. On almost every occasion, the phone would answer calls before I could even flip it over to see who was trying to reach me. Also, even if the phone was lying on my desk, the broken lock screen would make it almost impossible to decline a call.

This issue affects anyone who wants to pair their Pebble to their One, or who use apps like Floating Notifications that requires an Accessibility service to be turned on. It’s a pretty significant bug, to say the least, and one that I’m surprised HTC has ignored for this long. Then again, maybe they were unaware of the fix for all this time, just like I was.

I should point out that WidgetLocker can be installed to fix the device from unlocking with a single tap, though the dialer will bypass third party lock screens when receiving calls, so it won’t fix that problem.

You can try using Pattern or PIN options through Sense 5, but that adds another step to accessing shortcuts and such (sort of defeats the purpose). It also doesn’t fix the incoming call bug.

We were able to replicate the issue on a Sprint HTC One as well, so it’s not just the unlocked version. We weren’t able to test it on an AT&T version, though I wouldn’t be surprised if the issue was there.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Tip: Turning on Accessibility Options in Sense 5 on the HTC One Breaks the Lock Screen is a post from: Droid Life

Pebble, the darling smartwatch of Kickstarter, received an update today that makes receiving multiple notifications manageable, finally. In the past, one of our biggest criticisms had to do with new notifications wiping out previously received notifications before you could even finish reading them. In today’s update, as long as multiple notifications are received “within a short timeframe,” Pebble will allow you to use the up and down buttons to switch between them. This makes the Pebble immediately more functional and useful. 

Outside of the new notification management, they tweaked the UI here and there, swapped music track changing buttons, improved clipped text and graphic presentations, and squashed a ton of bugs.

Here is the full list of changes:

• Multiple notifications can now be viewed if they arrive within a short timeframe.
• Fix for vibration getting stuck ‘on’.
• UI changes for Date & Time menu.
• Option to show current speed (different than current pace) added in the Sports API.
• Next and previous track buttons swapped in the music control application.
• Power consumption fix for some Bluetooth connections.
• Improvements to presentation of clipped text and graphics.
• Fuzzy Time watchface is no longer installed by default and now available in the Pebble watchface list via the Pebble phone app.
• Fixed crash while changing windows, generally when setting alarm or setting time.

To grab the update, connect your phone to your Pebble, open the Pebble app on your phone, hit the action overflow menu and chose “Check For FW Update.”

Pebble also announced that orange and grey Pebbles are now shipping.

Via:  Pebble

Pebble Update Brings Multiple Notification Management, Other UI Changes is a post from: Droid Life

Two weeks ago, the Pebble team released their new SDK that allows for developers to build 2-way communication into apps so that interacting with your smartwatch is no longer a one-sided affair. One of the first to utilize this new power is an app called Pebble Ringer. Once installed on both your phone and then your Pebble watch, the app can change your smartphone’s ringer from silent to vibrate to ring. That’s really all it does, but you can see through a simple app such as this, how important 2-way communication between your smartphone and Pebble can be. You no longer have to pull your phone out of your pocket to silence or set it to vibrate – you can do it all from the watch.

Play Link

Cheers Shane!

Pebble Ringer Allows You to Adjust Your Phones Ringer From Your Pebble is a post from: Droid Life

Now that Pebble has shipped almost all of their original batch of smartwatches out to backers of their Kickstarter project, they are ready to ship devices out to the first set of pre-orders. Those who ordered black or cherry red Pebbles will receive an email asking for confirmation of shipping addresses this week. If you went with orange, grey, or white Pebbles, you’ll have to wait for Kickstarter backers to receive theirs first, a process which is still ongoing. 

Here is the email going out to those who pre-ordered:

We are happy to report that the first Pebble pre-orders placed after our Kickstarter project will be shipping soon!

Jet Black and Cherry Red Pebbles will be available first. If you have pre-ordered a Jet Black or Cherry Red Pebble, you will receive an email asking to confirm your shipping address yet this week.

Orange, Grey and White Pebbles will be ready in the coming weeks, once all Kickstarter Pebbles have been shipped. You will receive the shipping address confirmation email as soon as your Pebble is available.

If your order has multiple Pebbles with different colors, we will send out your Black and Red Pebbles at first with each other color Pebble shipping as soon as they are in stock.

Thanks for your patience as we work through our shipping commitments. We’re looking forward to hearing what you think of Pebble on your wrist!

Cheers,
The Pebble Team

If you are considering a Pebble, be sure to check out our review.

Via:  Pebble

With Kickstarter Backer Orders Delivered, Pebble Set Sights on Shipping Pre-orders is a post from: Droid Life

Kickstarter seems to be the number one choice for upstarts with a smartwatch in mind to seek funding these days. Agent “the world’s smartest watch” is the latest in a long line that includes tech darlings like the Pebble. And actually, this new Agent watch seems like nothing more than a thicker (and potentially uglier depending on your taste in watch designs) version of the Pebble, but with one difference – it has Qi wireless charging built in. The promo video shows a watch with a “Memory” display that’s a combination of an e-paper and LCD displays, that can be paired with your phone and used to tell the time, show weather, control music players, act as a pedometer, and show you incoming calls or messages.

After watching the promo video we have included below, I’m sure you’ll understand why we are drawing the Pebble comparisons.

The creators of the Agent also teamed up with a watchmaker to come up with the design, which again is…interesting. Contrast stitching in 2013? OK. How thick is this bad boy? We heard comments from readers who thought the Pebble was oversized, so I can’t imagine what they’ll think of this one.

If you’d like to back this project, the early bird special will run you $129, but will jump up to $149 afterwards. See any reason to pick this over the Pebble? I don’t.

Via:  Kickstarter

Cheers Chris!

Agent Smartwatch Launches on Kickstarter, Like a Thicker Pebble That’s a Year Late to the Party is a post from: Droid Life

Pebble, the Kickstarter smartwatch darling, released a new version of their SDK today which allows for 2-way communication between apps and the watch itself. In other words, you can use the watch to control external devices, to play multi-player games, check-in through social apps, integrate with sports apps better, and more. 

This major addition to the Pebble SDK is called AppMessage, which is a service that “enables watchapps to send and receive data from a connected smartphone app.”

There are the types of apps they are hoping to see:

• Watchfaces augmented with data from the internet
• Remote controls for internet connected devices
• Multi-player Pebble games
• 4sq/Facebook/Yelp Check-in Apps
• Sports/Weather/News/Traffic tickers
• Emergency beacon activator
• Deeper sports integration (skiing, hiking, surfing, tennis, soccer score keeping)!
• Bitcoin price trackers (most important watchapp?)

On a related note, orange Pebbles are in production this week and will begin shipping to backers next week.

Go grab your update, then sit back and wait for developers to work some 2-way magic.

Via:  Kickstarter

Pebble Releases 2-way Communication SDK Giving WatchApps Real Power is a post from: Droid Life

I know that we have been quiet on the Pebble front since doing our review a couple of months back, but we were sort of waiting to see how the app ecosystem was coming along after the release of the SDK. To put it plainly, it’s booming. There are hundreds of apps, watchfaces, and games for you to download to your Pebble. The concept of the Pebble smartwatch that we first saw during its Kickstarter days is now becoming a reality. So to make sure that all Pebble backers and early adopters know how they can take advantage of this new 3rd party app and watchface experience, we thought it was time for a quick tutorial. 

In the video below, we’ll walk you through browsing the best sites for apps, finding ones you’d like, and then eventually installing them. It couldn’t be easier, in case you were wondering. Just make sure your phone is paired to your Pebble through the official Pebble app, load up one of the two sites we have listed below, and get to installing.

Fully detailed instructions in the video.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Links:  MyPebbleFaces.com | Pebble Forums

How to: Install Third Party Apps and Watchfaces on Pebble is a post from: Droid Life

Runners and Pebble owners, the time has come for your new smartwatch to become a legitimate option as your running partner. Runkeeper updated this morning to include official support for the darling of Kickstarter, bringing real activity functionality to the watch that has for the most part been lacking since launch. In order to utilize Pebble with Runkeeper, all you need to do is pair your Pebble to your smartphone, update to the newest Runkeeper, and launch a new activity. Once launched, your Pebble should automatically display your progress (image above). 

Along with Pebble support, Runkeeper now has a widget for both your lock screen and home screens. You can start, pause, and stop activities without having to unlock your phone or fully launch the app, assuming you are running Android 4.2+.

Go get it!

Play Link

Click here to view the embedded video.

Via:  RunKeeper

RunKeeper Updated for Android With Lock Screen Widget, Now Works Officially With Pebble Too is a post from: Droid Life

Click here to view the embedded video.

With the launch of the Pebble smartwatch, the tech world seems to be happily hopping on-board for wearable technology. We have seen a Google smartwatch concept before in the past that was based on a Google Now-like design, but this short video from T3 shows what a more Android-inspired watch might be like. 

We talked about whether we would use smartwatches on the Droid Life Show this week, but what about you? Would you get this watch if Google made it?

Via: Android and Me

Video: Would You Get a Google Smartwatch if it Looked Like This? is a post from: Droid Life

Pebble, the Kickstarter funded smartwatch of the moment, stuck to its word and released their Watchface SDK, today. Going forward, developers will have the opportunity to get creative with the watchfaces that can be shared and downloaded to Pebble. We’re already seeing a handful in the Pebble forums, but the list will likely grow tremendously over the next few weeks as developers have time to play with this release.

The Pebble team also released an OS update today to build 1.10.0.  The new software brings support for watchfaces created by the previously mentioned Watchface SDK, helps increase battery life on iOS devices, include an improved battery indicator, and more. They also squashed a bunch of bugs, all of which we have listed below. 

What’s New

• Added support for third-party watchfaces created by the watchface SDK (see the SDK release notes for more details).
• Resolved power-savings issues causing impaired battery life when connected to an iOS device.
• Improved the responsiveness and power-efficiency of several system applications.
• Improved battery indicator to be more responsive and accurate.
• Added an option to disable turning on the backlight using the accelerometer.
• Added an option to disable the vibrating motor when a notification arrives.
• Factory reset now removes all non-system applications and watchfaces.
• “Allow Pebble to communicate…” pop-ups occur much less frequently on iOS.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a crash that occurred when an email is sent over MAP on iOS with an empty subject.
• Fixed a crash in the music app that occurred when Bluetooth was disabled.
• Fixed a crash in the music app if tracks were changed too quickly when paired with an iOS device.
• Fixed an issue where non-fullscreen apps that aren’t animated don’t render properly.
• Fixed an edge-case where Pebble would not properly connect to an iOS device.
• Fixed an issue where multiple vibration patterns would run concurrently.

And last, the Pebble Android app was updated to also include support for the Watchface SDK. You’ll find a new settings menu as well.

Via:  Pebble Forums [2] [SDK] [Play Link]

Cheers Lake!

Pebble Updated Once Again, Watchface SDK Also Released is a post from: Droid Life

The crew behind Pebble (our review) – the e-paper smartwatch and Kickstarter darling – posted an update to their project page today to inform backers of the status of watch shipments. If you purchased a black version of the Pebble, you have great news to enjoy as all black orders have been manufactured and left the factory on their way to fulfillment. (Yay!) According to the Pebble team, that’s over 55,000 black watches. 

If you ordered a colored version of Pebble, the news isn’t so hot. In fact, the news is so bad that Pebble is allowing you to swap out your color order for a black model should you decide that waiting any longer is completely unacceptable.

In their post, they mention that they thought that red and orange model color perfection had been achieved, but an issue arrose during final assembly. That issue appears to have been fixed, but it cost them at least a few days of down time. This also means that the grey and white versions are delayed even further. To make matters worse, grey and white have proven to be even more problematic.

As of today, the Pebble team hopes to ship red Pebbles within 2-3 weeks. They do not have projected dates for orange, grey or white. They will ship in that order though, once they are finished.

If you’d like to switch your order to a black Pebble, do so through your Pebble account.

In somewhat enjoyable news for those who already own a Pebble, you’ll now find 12-hour versions of many of the popular digital watchfaces that were previously released. You’ll need to delete the older versions first, but should be able to find the new ones in the watchface library.

Sorry, colored backers.

Via:  Kickstarter

Pebble Update: All Black Watches Ready for Fulfillment, Colors Delayed Even Further is a post from: Droid Life

When I first saw the Pebble I was honestly amazed. As the amazement wore off and the waiting settled in, I daydreamed about receiving notifications and being able to control my music from my wrist. Then, I received my Pebble and reality took over.

Now that I’ve had the Pebble for a week I’ve resorted to turning off the Bluetooth and using the watch to tell time and play Snake. Was it worth $150 for that? Not really, but I do love being able to shake my wrist to activate the backlight. Even though I’m generally disappointed with the Pebble, having it has made me think more about what a smartwatch should do and whether or not it’s a product that has the potential to change the way we interact with the world around us in a meaningful way. 

I think smartwatches will be like the first cell phones and smartphones. When the first cell phones came out people questioned why you would want to take calls anywhere. Smartphones simply extended that question to emails and the web. What we found was that we were able to stay connected with people, our information, and the world around us in insanely meaningful ways. We also found that our lives became increasingly more cluttered and distracted because of the influx of information and the ease with which we could be accessed. Smartwatches will never be the next smartphone, but they may be useful in some circumstances. We’ve already seen some of the initial reactions to smartwatches and they fall in line with early responses to cell phones and smartphones. Are you so lazy that you can’t just pull your phone out? Do you think you’re that important that you need to have yet another device? Chances are none of us are really that lazy or that important, but the idea of having another device to keep us even more connected in an unobtrusive way may still be tantalizing.

If (and this is still a big “if” at this juncture) smartwatches are able to show us information and interact with data in a meaningful way, they could be a major new disruption in the market. That said, I don’t think anyone is going to solve the big problems (UI, battery life, input) facing smartwatches without making some incredible compromises that will push most consumers out of the market. Those of us remaining who have the money and the patience, however, may be looking for the ideal product for a while.

Input and Notifications

The largest obstacle facing smartwatches is, of course, input. So you have a connected device that is able to show you notifications and information about what’s going on around you. Fine, but how do you input responses to interact with those notifications or information? Voice is a possibility, but it can’t be the only solution. There are simply too many situations where talking at your watch won’t be appropriate, much less expedient. Trying to put a keyboard on a watch is even more laughable.

The only solution that makes any sense to me is to have three possible responses to a notification like a text message or an email: dismiss, mark as read, and respond with a canned message. This would deal with most situations and make the watch useful beyond telling you what you already know – your phone just buzzed. If the notification is something you need to respond to later or in detail, you hit dismiss; if the notification is something you need to read, but not respond to, you hit mark as read; if the notification is something you need to respond to generically, you pick a canned response that you’ve prepared.

You might be thinking, “But I already do this with my phone. Doing that on my watch doesn’t actually help me.” You’re right; most of the time this sort of interaction won’t be helpful unless you’re in a meeting and can respond in one of the first two ways. Often times I’ll be in the middle of a conversation with someone and receive a phone call or text message. With my Pebble I’m (usually) able to tell if it’s something I need to deal with immediately or not with a quick glance to my wrist. It’s a subtle difference, but I can honestly say I’ve found it beneficial.

Another instance where I’ve found this sort of response helpful is when I’m driving. I know some of you live in states where public transportation exists and traffic is something you hear about in movies, but in southern California traffic is an integral part of life. Every day I travel for at least 40 minutes between home and work, sometimes more. Being able to quickly glance at my wrist to see what the notification is instead of changing my field of vision completely to glance at my phone is much, much safer. Again, this is subtle, but I’ve found it beneficial.

Context and Summarization

The second problem facing smartwatches is whether or not context can be used to the watch’s advantage. This is something that is still wildly underused on most smartphones. When we set up a new phone we go through the process of allowing Google and the manufacturer and the carrier to know where we are through GPS and wireless triangulation, but our phones still underuse that data. Apps like Groupon and Eye in the Sky use your location for deals and weather, but the vast majority of apps and services still don’t use this data for our advantage.

The classic example of using location data is walking into a Starbucks (or whatever coffee shop you frequent) and having your Gold Card show up for you to pay for your drink. Right now that sort of thing shows up on your phone, but it could also show up right on your watch for the barista to scan. If you have your headphones plugged in, your smartwatch could prompt you to start playing your favorite playlist. While you’re waiting for your drink to hit the bar your watch could notify you that the friend you’re scheduled to meet is about 5 minutes away. While you wait, your watch could show you your unread emails, things left on a to do list you have in Google Keep, or show you headlines from Google News.

This might sound like a lot to do on such a small screen. As a Palm Pre 2 owner, believe me when I say that you can see a lot of information on a smaller screen than you might imagine. These are all things that you could do on your phone (although some of these actions really aren’t available on phones still), but a smartwatch is uniquely positioned to be able to show you summaries of your content, notifications, and things to do in a quick way without having to jump through tons of apps. Again, this sort of summarization would be great to see in Now or even in DayDream, but I think it would be a good fit on a watch too.

Miniaturization

Like I said, I don’t think smart watches are the next big revolution in technology. Over the past few decades we’ve seen the computer go from something that takes up an entire room to something that fits in your pocket. While we may see it get miniaturized to the size of a watch, it will be forced to have limited capabilities because limited size limits utility. I hope we’ll see innovation in that space that doesn’t involve imaginary projected keyboards, but until then smartwatches will have minimal applications outside of time, notifications, displaying directions while driving, and summarizing information.

The Potential in Smartwatches [Opinion] is a post from: Droid Life

Pebble, the hottest little indie smartwatch of the year (our review), received a software update this week to version 1.9.0. In the update, navigation has been revamped toa make more sense, new watchfaces were introduced, and the first game (Snake) is available for download. To grab the update, you’ll need to pair your Pebble with a smartphone, launch the Pebble app, and hit Menu>Check For FW Update, if it doesn’t prompt you automatically. 

The new navigation combines all of the watchfaces into their own category, so that you no longer have to thumb through them and settings categories in the main menu. You can also thumb through watchfaces on the fly from any watchface by using the up and down buttons.

Now that production is well underway, the SDK for watchfaces will be out in the second week of April, so at that time, we’d imagine there will be more watchfaces to choose from than you can probably keep track of.

In the videos below, you can see a walk-through of the new update from my perspective. After that, I recommend watching the Kickstarter update from Pebble, if anything, because it shows off Mario on the watch. That’s right, someone created a Mario watchface.

Last, check out this Pebble Concepts page to see where developers are planning to take the watchface game.

Still using your Pebble or have you not received it yet?

Overview

Click here to view the embedded video.

Update from Pebble

Via:  Pebble

Pebble Smartwatch Updates to Version 1.9.0 – Revamped Navigation, Plus Games and New Watchfaces is a post from: Droid Life

LightFlow, one of our favorite notification apps, received an update this morning that added support for the Pebble smartwatch (our review). In the app, you’ll now see an option to “Send to Pebble.” If checked, your Pebble watch will vibrate with a notification from your phone, through LightFlow. As you can see in the photo above, it’s even showing me comments on Instagram, something I wasn’t expecting it to do. 

You can also attach dozens and dozens of other apps, as LightFlow is constantly adding support for more. For example, I now have Twitter notifications from HootSuite coming through, though they aren’t displaying the message, but just notifying me that I have a new message to view. I think the amount of info displayed depends on the app and what the notification shows in your notification bar.

If you backed Pebble or purchased one after the Kickstarter, I highly recommend picking up LightFlow to help add more notification options than you’ll know what to do with.

Play Links:  LightFlow Lite | LightFlow ($2.49)

Cheers Scott and @yodatom10!

LightFlow Update Adds Pebble Support For Notifications, Makes Possibilities Mostly Endless is a post from: Droid Life

After using the Pebble E-paper Smartwatch for five days, I’d say I’ve spent enough time with it to give you all my final impressions. And when I say that I’ve used it for five days, I’m not kidding. This sucker has been attached to my wrist from the time I wake up until my face hits my pillow at night. I’ve tried to make it as much a part of my daily life as I would a smartphone to see if there are any real benefits to having a smartwatch. So far, I’m seeing a lot of potential here. But is potential enough?

Design

Overall, I really like the look of Pebble. It’s simple, minimal, and not obvious. I chose the all-black version, which features a semi-glossy exterior and matte-rubber watch band. It may not stand out as the flashiest watch on the planet, but sometimes that’s a good thing, especially when the point of a smartwatch is to be constantly staring at it. The face is slightly curved (outward), the buttons on each side stick out just far enough to be pressed with ease, and the entire watch fits perfectly onto my wrists, which I do not consider to be big by any means. The size matches up to many of the standard watches these days, and does not fit into the “oversized” watch category in my opinion

Build

The Pebble is supposed to be waterproof and scratch-resistant. While I have yet to take it swimming, I’ll assume they aren’t lying when they added that spec to the feature list. As far it being scratch-resistant, all I can say is that I haven’t scratched mine to this point. With that said, we are hearing reports of others scratching theirs “with normal use.” I’d definitely take care of the display of this like you would a smartphone, as I do not believe it to be the most scratch resistant substance on the planet. Outside of the display, the unit itself feels solid and like it won’t die after a single drop. And actually, I just dropped it from my desk to hardwood floor while writing this and it survived.

Battery Life

The Pebble team claims that their watch with its E-paper display will last for up to 7 days on a single charge. As of writing this post, I’m at 5 days and counting on my first full charge. I don’t know if it’ll last the full 7 days, but I’m pretty happy with it at least getting me through a work week. There is a problem, though – it doesn’t have a battery meter. Unless we see an update that includes one, you have no idea how much life your Pebble has left in it before it dies.

Update:  In the menu, my Pebble is now showing a low-battery icon. This is the first time this has showed up, so I’ll assume this means that I should charge the watch or it will be dying soon. At least they notify you that death is near – would still like an ongoing battery meter.

Update 2:  Battery did die today, the 5th day of the first charge. Assuming the battery will get better over time, I can’t complain.

Notifications

The star feature of Pebble is its ability of it to show you notifications from your phone as they come in. It does a great job of populating your screen within seconds of a notification arriving. For now, Pebble can show notifications for incoming calls, SMS messages, calendar reminders, emails, Gmail messages (multiple accounts), Google Talk messages, Google Voice messages, Facebook messages, and WhatsApp messages. There will likely be more as developers build out support for Pebble.

While I mentioned that Pebble does a great job of notifying you immediately upon arrival, there are some limitations that I hope to see addressed before long. First, emails are limited to a certain number of lines or characters. If you are a power email user, you may find that a bit frustrating. For me, I eventually just had to use Pebble as a way to preview emails and to decide if I actually needed to pull my phone out or not. Then again, that’s sort of the point anyway, since you can’t actually reply to anything from the Pebble.

Also, notifications themselves aren’t handled well when you receive one after another. If you are looking at an email on Pebble and a Google Talk message comes in, the email disappears forever and you are left with the Google Talk message or whatever is newest. There is no way to return to the previous notification or manage say, your last five or ten notifications. At this point, Pebble can only handle one at a time.

User Interface

The user interface of Pebble is not incredibly advanced, and that may be a good thing. Since it doesn’t have a touchscreen, you rely on back, home/select, up and down buttons to navigate. It doesn’t take long to figure out, so for those concerned that it may be too advanced shouldn’t worry. There are a couple of simple screens – the clock face and then the menu. As you can imagine, you use the back button to get out of options, the home/select to choose them, and the up and down to navigate the menu. The UI is much better explained in the video review below, so I’ll spare you from me trying to explain it here.

What I will say, is that in world where we touch everything, it does seem like somewhat of a step backwards. Maybe this was how they kept it somewhat reasonable on the price?

Price

At $150, the Pebble is not necessarily cheap. It may carry the “smartwatch” tag, but it still needs to pack in a robust feature set in order to get people to want to commit to such a product at that price. For now, it lacks some features that we would like to see in the very near future (like pairing with workout or GPS-enabled apps). Give me Nike+ support with Pebble, and you won’t need to go out and buy a separate watch, just for exercising. The problem right now, is that we don’t know if apps like that will ever work with Pebble.

I should point out that you can buy a product like the Sony Smartwatch for as little as $100. It also handles notifications, does social media, controls music, and has a touchscreen.

Gallery

Video

Click here to view the embedded video.

The Verdict

Overall, I’ve definitely enjoyed my time with the Pebble. I love the idea of having notifications for emails or messages appear on my wrist so that I don’t have to pull out my phone all of the time. I’ve also been able to use it during the course of a normal workday, as it has allowed me to avoid having to dive into email every 30 seconds. Instead, I can look at my wrist for a second and decide if the email is important enough for me to take a deeper look at. It has a subtle design that makes it look like nothing other than a typical black watch, phenomenal battery life so far, and could turn into one heck of a product assuming developers decide to build out support for it through their apps.

On the downside, Pebble needs to fix the watch’s handling of multiple notifications and expand email output. They also need to convince those previously mentioned developers to build out support for their apps, so that this watch can be taken to the next level.

At $150, I wouldn’t necessarily say that the Pebble is overpriced, but I’m also not sure it’s priced to grab the average tech user. This is for early adopters and tech geeks, like myself that will have some patience as this eventually turns into the watch we all dream of it becoming.

Pebble E-paper Smartwatch Review is a post from: Droid Life